Commentary, Newsgathering and Privacy Rights, 1999 Annual Survey of American Law 207

Nathan represents media clients in First Amendment, intellectual property, and entertainment law cases in trial and appellate courts throughout every region of the country. He also provides pre-broadcast and pre-publication counseling to a wide range of print and web publishers, television networks, and film producers.

Nathan’s litigation practice covers a variety of issues for media clients, and has included successfully defending ESPN in defamation suits brought by major sports personalities, representing producers and broadcasters of reality television programs such as Dog the Bounty Hunter and Wife Swap in the defense of right of publicity lawsuits, advising The Guardian concerning its reporting about documents released by WikiLeaks, defending numerous journalists resisting subpoenas for confidential sources, obtaining access to information for news organizations in high-profile criminal matters such as the trial of “Scooter” Libby and the special prosecutor’s investigation of former President Clinton, and successfully defending ABC News in several novel lawsuits testing the limits of copyright law doctrines such as fair use and equitable estoppel.

Chambers USA has reported that Nathan has been praised for having “one of the most impressive legal minds I’ve ever encountered,” and that he is “the ideal guy to go to with a complicated question that looks impossible to answer.” Indeed, Best Lawyers has reported that “Nathan marries an encyclopedic knowledge of the law with a practical, client-friendly approach to each matter.” Nathan recently served as the President of the Defense Counsel Section of the Media Law Resource Center, the largest national organization of media defense counsel.

Prior to joining LSKS, Nathan served as in-house litigation counsel at ABC, Inc., where he supervised the defense of ABC News in the landmark Food Lion v. ABC case and many other matters. He is resident in the firm’s Washington, DC office, and also regularly practices from the firm’s New York office.

Notable Matters

Leach v. James, --- S.W.3d ---, 2014 WL 6612889 (Tex. Ct. App. 2014).Nathan and his LSKS colleagues successfully represented ESPN before Texas trial and appellate courts in a high-profile suit filed by former Texas Tech football coach Mike Leach, currently the head football coach at Washington State. The defamation, tortious interference, and civil conspiracy case against ESPN arose from its reporting about allegations that Leach had mistreated a student-athlete and claims that ESPN was responsible for Leach’s subsequent termination from Texas Tech. After the trial court granted summary judgment to ESPN on all claims and Leach appealed the dismissal of his tortious inference claim, the court of appeals affirmed the lower court’s decision.

Abbas v. Foreign Policy Group (D.C. Cir. 2015).Nathan successfully represented the author of a commentary published in Foreign Policy in a defamation lawsuit brought by Yasser Abbas, a son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The case was the first appellate ruling in the District of Columbia to hold that questions are not potentially defamatory assertions of fact.

Joseph v. Daily News Publishing Co., Inc., 57 V.I. 566 (2012). Nathan successfully argued an appeal in the Virgin Islands Supreme Court, affirming summary judgment for the Virgin Islands Daily News in a defamation suit brought by a public official arising out of a newspaper’s reporting about questionable health inspections of island restaurants. The case was one of the first defamation-law precedents handed down by the newly established Supreme Court.

Guastaferro v. The Walt Disney Co. (N.Y. Sup. Ct. 2011). Nathan successfully enforced the arbitration clause in a release signed on behalf of a participant in the reality show Wife Swap asserting defamation and right of publicity claims. The case was only the second entertainment-law precedent nationwide to enforce an arbitration clause in a release signed by a parent on behalf of a minor child.

Hatfill v. Gonzales, 505 F. Supp. 2d 33 (D.D.C. 2007). Nathan succeeded in quashing subpoenas that a plaintiff in a federal Privacy Act case issued to The New York Times, Associated Press, and The Baltimore Sun demanding the disclosure of journalists’ confidential sources. The decision set an important precedent discouraging the use of subpoenas issued under Rule 30(b)(6) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure as a device for seeking disclosure of confidential sources.

Knievel v. ESPN, 393 F.3d 1068 (9th Cir. 2005). Nathan successfully defended a defamation suit brought in Montana by daredevil Evel Knievel concerning material published on the website EXPN.com. The trial court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed in a decision that is often cited as a precedent permitting courts to consider multiple layers of website content on a motion to dismiss.